We have no complaints, said Rangers Manager Walter Smith.
We were disappointing, said Rangers Manager Walter Smith.
All the players gave 110% said Hearts Christophe Berra, and he was NOT talking about the Rangers players.
This was the WORST Rangers defensive performance against hearts for over 70 years.
So what went wrong? Were the players out on the town last night?
Hearts had more spirit, wanted it more, and went after it. This kind of performance from Rangers will not be tolerated. Too many players went out onto the pitch today and tried to hide. No one wanted to take responsibility. The midfield stood and watched as the ball just passed them by.
Steven Whitaker, Amdy Faye, Demarcus Beasley and Kevin Thompson, played like stuffed sheep. These players gave no support to either their defence or their forwards.
Amdy faye showed all the reasons why he has been on the transfer merry-go-round for the last few seasons, and no doubt that performances like this will see another exit at the end of the season.
Steven Whittaker, needs to give Alan Hutton much better cover. Steven needs to ensure that he stops giving the ball away. He is only playing at 70% at the moment and that is not acceptable.
DeMarcus Beasley, despite his consolation goal today, is not giving us any more than Chris Burke, and Nacho Novo or Steven Naismith would certainly contribute much more both defensively and creatively.
Kevin Thompson is another player only giving us 70%-80%. These types of performance may have been acceptable for Hibs, but they are most definitely not acceptable for Rangers. Kevin needs more buzz and bite and much crisper passing to the men in blue.
Players who could come back into contention for a midfield place are: Thomas Buffel, Lee McCullock, Chris Burke; Nacho Novo; Steven Naismith; Brahim Hemdani (who would definitely tightened up the defence); and Charlie Adam.
There are always lessons to be learned from a defeat such as this. In fact, if the Rangers players and coaching staff learn all the lessons to be had from today’s game then, we will take away much more from the defeat than the three points we dropped.
In particular our use (or lack ) of dead ball situations, free kicks, corners and throw-ins is of critical importance. When we take a throw-in the team completely ignore the players taking the throw-in, consequently we lose possession at over 50% of our own throw-ins.
Taking quick free kicks keeps the game moving and can catch the other side unprepared, but only if our own players are ready and prepared to take advantage. This was not the case today.
Corners are one of the worst aspects of Rangers offensive armoury. Either they are floated-in to grateful goalkeepers waiting arms or weakly crossed to defending heads. The ball is not being struck well enough or accurately enough. The players waiting in the box are much too stationary and need to be making timed runs onto well struck crosses, in order to up our conversion rate.
Indeed, mobility is one of our major flaws at the moment. We were unable to keep up with the Hearts players today, especially in the first half, and when we do get the ball no one is willing to run into the open spaces.
All in all, we have a lot of work to do both on the training ground and on the pitch.
